How Hatshepsut became pharaoh in a man's world

The rulers of ancient Egypt had different family values than those in rhetorical play these days.

Like European royalty before the Enlightenment, the Egyptian dynasts concerned themselves above all with succession. It mattered so much that marriages within the royal cohort frequently crossed boundaries deemed inviolable by modern morality and psychology.

The familial closed circle of access to kingship brought Hatshepsut to the throne in 1475, B.C., apparently by dint of circumstance and her own initiative.

Hatshepsut was the daughter of a pharaoh, Tuthmose I. His son, Tuthmose II, succeeded him and Hatshepsut married Tuthmose II, her half-brother.

But Tuthmose II reigned only briefly. At his death he left a son by another wife, Tuthmose III -- Hatshepsut's nephew and stepson.

He being too young to rule at the time of succession and she being the widowed queen, they ruled together until Hatshepsut assumed all the trappings, titles and responsibilities of traditionally male power.

With the assent of the priestly order and the people, she presided over a period of relative peace and flourishing culture, against a background of slowly shifting religious belief.

After her nephew came of age, he resumed sole rulership and, following her death, ordered every inscription of her name effaced from artifacts commissioned during her reign, to erase the popular and official memory of a female pharaoh whose effective rule appeared to earn her legitimacy.